Happy Thanksgiving Again.

One of the sesame street movies, I think it is Elmo Saves Christmas, they go around singing a song called "It's Christmas Again!" and that is what is on my mind today as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with my immediate family, having celebrated with my husband's family yesterday.   There will be a lot fewer people at mine and my kids are the only kids, but we will have a good time anyway.  I see Rock Band and board games in this afternoon's future.  :-P  Yesterday, we played Taboo and Catch Phrase. Have a great black Friday everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am up early because I just woke up but I realized right after I woke up that the sweet potato pie really needs to be in the oven by 9:00 a.m., so it's a good thing I am up.  Since 3 of us are gluten free now, we need to bring our own dressing, our own turkey/chicken (due to the cooking method of throwing wheat flour into the baking bag), our own gravy and our own desserts.  Luckily, I have taught my husband to make gravy and now he makes it better than I do, so he did that and baked the cornbread, which I made into stuffing, my daughter made a cheesecake with a gluten free graham cracker crust, so I only have a few things to do this morning, do the sweet potato pie, the rolls and bake the stuffing which is already assembled.   I made a list last night because lists help me.  I love a good list.  :-) 

Gluten Free?

If you are here looking for gluten free Thanksgiving recipes, take a look here at my other blog, here at Gluten Free on a Shoestring and here at Gluten Free Easily.  It's not that difficult to make a wonderful meal that is gluten free. 

I am going to be cooking a chicken, sage and onion cornbread stuffing, crustless sweet potato and pecan pies, and gravy and my brother and his girlfriend will be making the vegetable side dishes.  My daughter may also make a cheesecake.  I use the Pamela's baking mix and just substitute it cup for cup into my recipes for most things. 

Thank goodness.

For my homeschool group.  We met at Burger King yesterday, sat there and played UpWords and talked while the kids played Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples and Telestrations.  We all had a good time and I felt renewed when I left there.  I'm still carrying my burdens, but sharing with my friends has made it feel lighter.  Today, we've got baking and cleaning to do, along with a lot of other people here in the US, I'm sure, preparing for tomorrow. 

The struggle continues.

WARNING:  THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS A LOT OF WHINING and some sarcasm.

I'm trying to work at this tedious, awful voice recognition job that my job has turned into while dealing with multiple phone calls regarding my mom.  She's still not happy but she wasn't happy at home either.  No matter what we do, no matter how much we visit and call, she's not happy.  I don't know what to do.  When my aunt called me about it this morning, I told her that she was asking me for the impossible.  No matter how long I stay, one minute after I leave, mom will be lonely.  No matter how long I talk to her on the phone, as soon as I hang up, she will be lonely again.   I can't bring her into my loud, rowdy rambunctious home of teenagers, dogs and cats.  I can't imagine that she could stand that and I know I probably couldn't, not that we have room.  If she went to live with my brother, she would still be alone 12 hours a day and in another city so that I couldn't visit her as often.  It's just an all around lose/lose situation for everyone involved.  It's sad.  You can love a person and try to please a person, but you cannot make someone else happy.

Meanwhile, my brother and I are trying to get her mail transferred, trying to get her subscriptions moved out to where she is now, trying to manage her money, trying to winterize her house, trying to cope with it all while also dealing with a situation that has come up with mom's caregiver that I don't feel comfortable sharing here, but it is bad, trust me.

And with all of that, we are heading into the holidays when we try to have so much fun and do so much extra stuff and I personally just end up feeling more stressed, every year.

Yay.
 

A couple of pictures.

My daughter is practicing learning to draw eyes.

Freckles begging for turkey from my oldest son.

Thanksgiving week begins!

My son came home from Mississippi yesterday.  Usually he stops a lot of times and calls me a lot of times, but yesterday I knew I was going to be at church  so I told him not to call until after church.  He called around 2:00 p.m.   The younger kids and I took grandma to church, bought lunch, took her back home and ate lunch with her, then got some things done around the house.  Later on, I thought "He should be calling again".  My daughter said "Call him." and I said "I don't like to call when I know he's driving.  It might startle him." and then about 15 minutes later he was home!   It was great.  :-)   He's getting better at the drive and he's got GPS now and a good vehicle. 

As for my mom and how's she's adjusting, well, she's a little more forgetful than usual in some ways.  She couldn't remember who had brought her to church (me) and at church she said to me "I think you probably should put me in assisted living or something." to which I replied "You are in assisted living." , but she also said a few comments like "Whose idea was it for me to come and live in this place?"  She doesn't love it, but she's warm, she's safe, she has someone to talk to in her cousin, plus she has quite a few visitors.  I was up there every day last week except Wednesday and Saturday and my brother's girlfriend was there on Wednesday and my brother was there on Saturday, also 2 of my mom's sisters visited and her brother has went up there every day, for a little while each morning.  Also, she is learning some things about her new place and remembering them reasonably well like which button on the remote is to turn the TV on and off.   It is a struggle when your short term memory is impaired and also, I'd just like to point out, not fair. 

We are looking forward to getting together with family and friends for Thanksgiving.  We're going to see the homeschool family on Tuesday, then on Thursday, my husband's parents and brothers and then on Friday my mom and brother and then on Friday the kids have another party with a kid from the homeschool group.  It's going to be here and gone the blink of any eye and we all know who I turn into after Thanksgiving ...

Another day.

Today my daughter had another sale.   She did pretty well.   She sold 69.00 worth of merchandise;  3  scarves and a crocheted bunny.   I dropped her off at the sale and then came back home to do some medical editing which is a lot of what my job is now.   I kinda hate it.   Imagine having to type an important document and getting a 5 year old to type it then having to correct what they have typed.   It would be easier to just type it yourself, right?  It is a giant pain in the behind.  It is extremely annoying. 

In other news,  Mom has made it through one more day in the assisted living facility.   She doesn't love it but I am still of the opinion that it is a safer place  for her to be and I am still hopeful that she will settle in.   Her cousin being 2 doors down is good and bad.   It means that she is not as lonely but it also means that we are not alone to visit with mom much.   oh well.   The most important thing is that she not be lonely so it is fine.  

I'm looking forward to thanksgiving week even though it is going to be very different this year since my mother in law is also not hosting so we won't be going to grandma's or mamaw's this year.:-(

Okay, now I sound like an idiot.

One of the workers from my mom's assisted living facility called me asking about her automatic pill dispenser. She couldn't tell if it had dispensed the pills this morning or not and because of my silly deal with the kids to pretend that Thursday was Friday, so they would get their school work done on Thursday night, I was confused when she called and thought today was Saturday.  Duh.  Anyway, even if she does think I'm an idiot, I was very nice and polite, so at least she will think that I am a nice idiot.   Since mom is in assisted living and has someone come in every morning to help her with her pills, I am going to replace the automatic, alarming pill dispenser with a plain one.  We have staff now.  It's very nice to know that she is being checked on.  She's had an exercise class, a crafts class and they have had a live musician come in and play saxaphone saxephone saxophone for them and yesterday they had a Thanksgiving dinner and my youngest son and I went, along with mom's sister.  I'm gluten free so I ate my turkey, some green beans and some sweet potatoes and passed on all the pies, but my son ate a good amount and seemed to enjoy it too.  Mom and Mom's cousin who also lives there, enjoyed watching him eat and laughed at him trying to cut his turkey and ham with a plastic fork and plastic spoon.  Then later we went and mom beat me at a game of UpWords.  I'm good at it and beating me is no easy feat. 

So anyway, as the days go by I hope she feels happier and more at home. 

Well then.

Today I didn't go to the assisted living center.   My brother was going to go but he had to work over and when he found out he couldn't, he asked his wonderful girlfriend to drop by and check on mom.  Before she got there, my mom called her sister and said that she didn't like it there and she just wanted to be home and have someone stay with her around the clock.  However, that would be 4 times as expensive as living in the assisted living facility and that's not even including groceries, heat, air, water, cable and phone, all of which she had to pay for at home and all but phone is included in the cost of the facility.  We just feel like we are in a lose/lose situation and I don't know what to do other than wait it out and hope that she finds a place there, finds friends there and settles in.  It's sad.  It's difficult.

In other news, since this is a homeschooling blog, I'll talk for a minute about homeschooling.  The kids, especially the boy, have been abusing their freedom and putting as much work off until Friday as possible.  I need them to help me get this house cleaned up before Thanksgiving.  I was wishing there was an extra day in the week because our crazy busy-ness is not letting up anytime soon.  I thought of a solution at last and came into the living room and made this announcement "Tomorrow is Friday."  It won't hurt them to cram a little tomorrow and get it done so Friday, we can get our clean on.   Saturday is a craft sale and that is the start of a busy, busy, busy week. 

Mom not being happy makes me not look forward to the holidays now.  Of course I'm always kind of grinchy this time of year, so really I should be surprised. 

Okay.

We got mom moved yesterday.   It was kind of stressful and difficult but we got through it.   Mom's cousin is in the same assisted living facility that mom is in and she is about the same as far as her Alzheimer's goes, so they remember each other but they don't remember where each other's rooms are; but they were happily walking up and down the hall last night part of the time, so I really think that her cousin being there is going to be a blessing.  Mom was worried when she went to sleep last night about what would happen in the morning and if she would sleep through breakfast, but AT&T did a great job of getting her phone switched over to her new apartment in a timely manner, so I was actually able to call mom this morning and talk to her.  Her cousin was in the room and her brother had stopped by for a visit, so she was having a great time and she said that she slept well.  I feel so much better now.  This morning was what I was worrying about too.   I'm going to go see her this afternoon and take her some things we forgot yesterday. 

Thanks for prayers and warm thoughts over the last couple of weeks.  :-)

So much.

Just yesterday I was posting about the job of human being sometimes getting just too big to handle.  Today is a perfect example.  I had to go over and feed my mom's dog and let her out.  Then I've got to work today.  Then back to let the dog out. At 3, we have 4H which I am kind of in charge of and we are moving might be moving mom into the assisted living facility this evening.  Right now she's with her sister.  This week in retrospective has just been a joy (sarcasm).  I've had to deal with the emotional and physical toll of  mom moving,  issues with her caregiver, contacting our attorney, trying to get all the paperwork done, falling down the stairs and still not being able to turn my head to the left without pain,  I dropped all my credit cards, insurance cards and driver's license last Monday night (found all of them but 2, thanks to a concerned citizen at Kmart) when I went shopping and here we are going into the holidays.

I was going to add that if you came to this blog looking for a post on homeschooling, I'm sorry, but you know what?  This week would have been so much more difficult if we were having to deal with the schools, getting up early, the kids coming home tired and cranky, hours of homework ...  I've been there.  I remember it.  I'm glad we're homeschooling now.  

Too Big?

When I worked at a hospital several years ago as a medical transcriptionist, there were 11 day shift transcriptionists and we typed the day away.  I was doing emergency department reports all the time and would probably do 10-12 an hour at least.   Everyone else was typing History and Physical reports, operative notes, progress notes, radiology reports, etc.  We were very productive.  On some of the reports, we were requested to send carbon copies to the patient's primary care physician, referring physician and all of the other consultants.  As a result, those printers never stopped.  There were 4 of them and they were spitting out piles of paper all day long.  There was 1 clerk whose job it was to take all the papers off all the printers, sort them, put some of them in physician's boxes that were right there in the department, fax some to doctor's offices, take some of them to the emergency department and radiology and surgery and to the catherization lab and file some of them.  She also had to keep the printers filled with paper and working.  I worked there for about 4 years and we had 3 clerks during that time.  The person who was the clerk never got to sit down, rarely got to go to the bathroom, almost always worked through her lunch and kept moving the whole time.  None of them could convince the supervisor and the other powers that be, that she needed an assistant, a helper of some kind, a co-clerk, basically just some HELP.  As a result, all of the clerks would keep doing it as best they could while frantically applying for different jobs and none of them lasted very long.  The job had just grown too big.

I think some of us are in that very same place as moms, daughters, wives, employees - sometimes it seems like this job is just too big and no one should be expected to do it all.  We need assistants or at least assistance.  We need to figure out which things we need to say no to and figure out how to do that without feeling guilty and ask for help when it is appropriate and we need to be able to concentrate on what we are doing without worrying about the next thing and take time to enjoy life a little bit.   I think this is especially hard during certain seasons of life, when your kids are all little and when your kids are all launching and your parents are aging.   There have been a couple of good articles about being present in your life that apply to us all, I think.  Here's one.  Here is another one. I am not perfect in this by any stretch of the imagination and when things get really bad for me, I tend to use technology as a way to escape.  For example after my Dad passed away I spent a lot of time Netflixing  TV shows like NCIS and CSI while simultaneously playing the The Sims 2.  Whatever works, I guess.  I'm also very blessed to have family members who will take up some slack for me whenever I am especially stressed, like my husband going to the grocery for me and the kids cooking and baking during my recent illness.

This picture is from last November, but that's pretty much what it looks like today too.  Wet. 

Craftiness.

 Some crafts from our house,  a scarf my youngest son crocheted, the beginning of a circular afghan my daughter is making for him and a quilted bag my daughter made.  They are not good photos.   The blanket and the scarf are both a lot prettier than they look here.

I've had a post turning around in my head for a few days.

Lets see if I can make it coherent.  I've been thinking about launching our kids out in the grown-up world.  We've got one in college, one who graduates high school this year and then one who will graduate after 2 more years.  My oldest son graduated from home school and didn't go to college right away.  He took a year and tried to find a job.  He finally was able to get one (through some family connections) and worked at it for a few days, came home and said that he would like to go to college after all. (He did continue to work there the rest of the summer and saved most of the money he made, which helped a lot.)  I started looking at Scholarships.com  for scholarships based on his interests, music, art and religion.  I found a bunch of scholarships to this college in Mississippi that I'd never heard of, applied for them and he got one, a nice big one.  It's a private school and his scholarship is not a full ride, so there are expenses.  We had to fill out a FAFSA and he's had to use a Pell Grant and some loans.  He will have some debt after school, but hopefully not an insurmountable amount.  He is planning on working next summer if he can get his old job back temporarily.  I kind of discouraged him from working last summer because we hadn't seen him in 5 months and I knew if he was back to working third shift, we wouldn't see him then, either.   I typed up his transcript and had it notarized.  He had already taken the ACT the year before, so we had his scores sent there.  It's very easy to get the testing done.  You just sign up at the website, pay and the student has to go to a local high school to take the test.  

With our daughter, though she would like to go to the school he's going to, doesn't not particularly want to move to Mississippi, 9 hours away from her parents.  She wants to take a course or two this year (we'd better get her started) through either StraighterLine or a local college that offers dual credit for high schoolers.  She will probably major in art.  She is very artsy.  She wants to start college in this gradual manner because she does not want to take the ACT or SAT.  Just the thought of testing makes her nervous.

For the youngest, he is not sure what he wants to do.  He is hard at work collaborating with his sister on a novel and he kind of would like to make millions from that and then be an entrepreneur, but we'll see I guess.  He is somewhat dysgraphic/dyslexic so he may need some help getting through school although he is plenty smart.   He may also go to college for engineering because 5 semesters of calculus doesn't scare him.   He is really good at math.  One of my husband's brothers majored in math and physics and the other is an accountant, so I guess it's not surprising.   My daughter is also pretty good at math but my oldest, sadly, is not.   I think he's done with math in college though, so that's good.

In our homeschool group, the moms sit and talk about what their kids are going to do and how we can help them accomplish it.  One of the homeschool group kids graduated school at 16, started college and now at 19 has an associate degree at a community college and is working on her bachelors, also commuting to a community college and working at night at UPS so that UPS pays part of her tuition..  One of the girls in our group is going to go to a local university and live in the dorms, majoring in special education.  One of the boys in our group has talked about joining the air force.  A girl from our church has joined the National Guard and now they are paying her college tuition.  There are just so many paths to take.  I personally got a bachelor's degree in Child Development, then floundered around trying to actually make money in that field, took a correspondence class in medical transcription and have been doing that for 20 years.  I may have to reinvent myself, get some more education and try to do something else since being an MT is not paying as well as it used to.  Sigh.

My point is, there are a lot of different ways to go about launching into adulthood and self-suffiency.
The article that got me thinking about this is here. http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2013/11/09/parents-overly-involved-college-students-lives/mfYvA5R9IhRpJytEbFpxUP/story.htmlSnowplow parents.  I don't think I am a snowplow parent although I did call my son's school a couple of times regarding his gluten free diet.  Once to see if they could accommodate it and once to report that he was getting sick and could they take a look at their cross-contamination issues.  That's it, I promise.  :-P

A couple of funnies.

Yesterday, when the teens were playing with the baby we babysit, they put a blanket over this little box and made it like a little car and moved it around the room.  After a while, my daughter thought the baby might be sleepy, so she got her to lie down in the box.  The baby said something that sounded like "gluk guh" and sat back up.   My daughter said "'gluk guh' what does that mean?"  and my son said "It means 'I've got a cardboard box poking me in the side".  Then they went back to pulling the box around the room and making car noises and at one point the box hit my son in the side, so he said "gluk guh!"   It was cute.

Later on, the same son and my daughter were sitting on my bed talking to me while I was looking up patterns for something I want to sew.   I printed one out and asked my son to go get it.  He got up off the bed, walked into the other room and didn't come back.  My daughter and I sat there for a while waiting for him, but he was off doing something else.  My daughter said that sometimes when she asks him to do something, he goes and does something else.  Her theory is that he hears the asking/ commanding tone of voice, but is not really listening to what she says.  She says that often she asks him to hand her something and he gets up and puts the dogs out.  LoL.

Easy Peasy.

I just heard about something today called Easy Peasy all in one Homeschool.  It's free!  Check it out.
Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool.

How cool is that?  I took a little break today to go out and see my peeps.  One of my favorite homeschool families has recently moved to another state so when they visit, we all drop what we are doing and go visit with them.  There were 4 of us homeschooling mamas there and one of them mentioned the website above. 

As always, we had a lot to talk about.  They are better than any therapists. 

Home Economics Class is in Session.

There is babysitting going on and even though my daughter is the one babysitting, both kids are having fun with it.  I should say all three kids are having fun with it, because the point of all they are doing is to make the baby happy, so she's having a good time too.  They've showed her the dogs and cats, played rolling a ball back and forth, put the baby in a box and scooted her throughout the house, danced, played drums and all kinds of other things.  I have mostly been diligently working but I did take a few short breaks to do some cooking and cleaning up the kitchen a little bit and getting occasional peeks into the fun that they are having.  Right now, I hear dancing sounds and the song "Girls Just Want To Have Fun.".  They are playing all the music from the prom.  We were lucky enough to get some of the CDs and they make a good babysitting sound track.  :-) 

As the months go on, my daughter is learning to cope with things by herself.  The first week, I helped with feeding and diapering, but as time has went on, I'm not needed to help.  I really shouldn't be surprised as one of my grandmothers was a mom at 17 and also raising 5 of her siblings. 



Doing better so far?

Okay, I gotta admit, the kids did a pretty bad job last week, procrastinating their school work until Friday night and a natural consequence of that was that we didn't get to listen to our audio book because they were still working on school until almost midnight.  Yes.  It is bad.  They know it.  I know it.  For the moment though, I'm not working on any strategies to help them do better.  For one thing, I have a lot going on and a lot on my mind too, with my job going to the dogs so to speak with this new voice recognition editing that I have to do and get paid almost nothing for doing and still feeling kind of bad, so I don't really have time, energy or patience for being right on top of them all the time.  It might be a good thing though.  They are both up and at it today and some stuff is getting done.  They just might learn to pace themselves throughout the week and get things done on their own,which will be a useful skill throughout life. 

Speaking of pacing oneself, I'd better get to work while I have work.  I have a date today with a dear friend to go salvage and thrift shopping and I want to get done a little early!

Photo unrelated to content of blog, I just thought it was pretty.

Speech Recognition.

According to the speech recognition program I now edit for, these are some of the doctors at our hospital.

Dr. Continuous.
Dr. In Deep and Rectal  (He's a cardiologist).
Dr. While.
Dr. Ipatchi C. Fair Child.
Dr. Ipatchi For Charles.  (He's the same one as the line above.  His first name is NOT Ipatchi.)
Dr. Emergent. 
Dr. Breathing.
Dr. Internist.
Dr. Notes Pain to History.
Dr. Farmer Grading.
Dr. Are Returning.
Dr. Coli.
Dr. Blurry Eyed.

What to blog about?

I'd like to have some inspiration and have Great Things to blog about, but I am not thinking great and inspired thoughts this week.  Things I am thinking about in no particular order are these.

I need to remember to take my daughter to take her driver's permit test next Monday.  I keep forgetting.

I wish my job hadn't changed to voice recognition because now I am thinking that I will have to reinvent myself and come up with another career and I really don't want to.

I need to stop by the library and pick up a book they are holding for me. .

I need to stop by the post office and get my friend's mail and then probably mail it to her, since I don't know when I will get to see her again.

I feel like I could really, really, really use a nap.

I just did a google search for workflow instead of sending an email to workflow to let them know I am ending my shift - at least for now.

I wish I could go back and hold the babies tonight like I did last night.  I love doing that.

I hope the kids don't have too much of a Friday night rush this week.  I keep hoping they will learn their lesson and stop procrastinating.

There are about a million other I shoulds, I feels, I needs and I wishes in there, but I don't have time to express them all.

Have a good day everyone. 

Hmmm.

I'm not sure yet, but I think going dairy free has helped my joint pains.  I am feeling a lot better in that regard.  I'm glad I didn't decide after 1 week to go back on dairy, since it seems to have taken a week and 2 days to see improvement.  I am hoping this improvement is not just a fluke and is actually due to the dairy because as much as I love cheese, I really really really love being able to walk without excruciating pain.  I'm funny that way. 

School and babysitting and work are marching on.  We just keep going around here.  My oldest son has finished his trimester finals and has a week break, but he's going to stay in the dorm and wait until classes start again, then go back to class for a couple of weeks, then home for thanksgiving.  I really wish they could consolidate those breaks somehow. 

Mom is still not moved.  My brother is back at work.  I am working.   The next step is the paperwork being turned in and my brother has it, so until he brings it to me or takes it to the assisted living facility, we can't do anything.   So, waiting.  My favorite thing.  :-P

Sunday.

Still hanging in here, I guess.  We thought we were going to get Mom moved this week, but everything happens when you make plans like that and so maybe now we are looking at next weekend.  It's hard on me and the kids because every time we go over there, there's this feeling that this may be the last time we visit grandma at her house.  Then we have to go through it again and again and again.  I really want to just get it done.  I am a pull-the-bandaid-off-quickly kind of person so it's been a difficult week. 

But, as it always does, life has a way of just going on.  I'm still working and still trying to find my way with the voice recognition software.  One of the things I do to keep my sanity is to laugh at the funny things it types.   There is one doctor there whose last name is really unusual and sounds kind of like Fargotrading.  (*that's not exactly it because I don't know how far the weird confidentiality stuff goes and I don't want to get in trouble.)  So anyway, every time someone says his name as the referring physician or something, it types something different.  Two from yesterday are Dr. Farmer Grading and Dr. Are Returning.  I plan to keep a list, just for kicks of all the funny names it calls him. 

Also, sometimes the doctors themselves say something funny.  Yesterday on the physical examination, a doctor dictated the following.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: 
GENERAL APPEARANCE: Reveals a well developed well nourished male who is in no acute distress.
HEAD: Normocephalic.
NECK:  Examination of the neck results in a threat of bodily harm to the physician.
CHEST: Clear.

The kids are doing school as usual and did quite a bit better with the Friday night rush this week than they usually do, so that's progress.  I am going to add a couple of things to their lists that I forgot in August, one is exercise and the other is a 'put one thing in the goodwill box" sort of decluttering system that we've done before with school because we really need to get this house declutterified.  (Yes, I know that's not a word.)

Anyway, pray for us as we again try to homeschool and work through a stressful time.  

I feel like

I should say Happy Halloween again because today was when the trick-or-treating was in our town.  They cancelled it last night because of a storm.  I ignore the predicted weather and just do whatever I was planning to do for the most part, so I went and volunteered at the children's hospital last night holding the babies in the NICU and then had to drive home with high winds, rain and low visibility, but at least I got to see the little ones.  They were all dressed up in costume last night so they were particularly cute.  Then today I worked and was pleasantly surprised to find work available to do, made some stew in the crockpot, took the girl to piano and then we went to craft night.  We did not have a good turnout at craft night so we finished with that quickly and came back early.  Now with all the work I'm going to do today done, I am going to watch the mentalist.

My brother is handling my mom's situation and I am thankful for that.  I feel a little fragile about it all, so I'm keeping busy and he's doing that and then, maybe next week, we'll try and settle into our new normal.